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Shortening in Cookies. Vegetable shortening is a solid fat made from vegetable oils, like soybean or cottonseed. It was traditionally made by transforming oil to a solid through partial hydrogenation, resulting in trans fats.

Shortening, by definition, is any fat that is solid at room temperature and used in baking. This actually includes a few things that you may have thought were definitely not shortening before鈥搇ike lard, and margarine, and hydrogenated vegetable oils, for instance. Shortening helps give baked goods a delicate, crumbly texture.

Regularly, bakers like using margarine as a replacement for butter; hence it fits well to be used as a substitute for shortening in baking cookies. One thing to note is that you may need to add an extra spoonful of margarine for each cup of shortening in your recipe.

The term shortening, though it often does refer to hydrogenated vegetable oil, actually refers to all solid fats used in baking. It鈥檚 called shortening because it works to coat the protein molecules of flour, making it more difficult for long strands of gluten to be created.